Senior Eli Lederman wins $1500 APSE Tim Wheatley Scholarship
Missouri senior Eli Lederman from Mamaroneck, N.Y., has been selected as the winner of the $1500 Associated Press Sports Editors Tim Wheatley Scholarship.
Columbia, Mo. (Oct. 4, 2019) — Missouri School of Journalism senior Eli Lederman has been selected as the winner of the $1500 Associated Press Sports Editors Tim Wheatley Scholarship.
The annual scholarship, established in 2007, is one of four that APSE gives to collegiate sports journalists. The scholarships are awarded based on the quality of the journalism, academic record and need. All four winners will also be given APSE student memberships.
Lederman, who is from Mamaroneck, N.Y., says that his learning experiences through the journalism school and work with the School’s community newspaper The Columbia Missourian and the college newspaper The Maneater, have provided him with skills, tools and real-world opportunities that have shaped and sharpened his abilities as a journalist.
“The teaching I’ve received, the challenging assignments I’ve undertaken and the feedback I’ve been given from professors and faculty members has all elevated me,” Lederman said. “And, when I’ve ventured to work outside of Columbia during internships in London, England, and this past summer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I’ve found myself not only prepared for the assignments thrown my way, but usually ahead of the game. For that, I’ve got the School of Journalism to thank.”
According to Michael Knisley, assistant professor and sports editor at The Columbia Missourian, Lederman has risen to all challenges asked of him.
“In the fall of 2018, I asked for an MU football presence on the Missourian’s website and in the paper every day of the week from the start of fall practice until the end of the bowl season, and Eli never failed to respond to that ask,” Knisley said. “He was pro-active in chasing the news on the beat. He filed resonant feature story after resonant feature story. And he produced top-notch longform and enterprise content for our weekly Missouri football special section – longform content that I will put up against work produced by professional sports journalists anywhere in the nation.”
Lederman says that his “Missouri Method” training, the hands-on philosophy of learning-by-doing, truly does work.
“When you’re a prospective student, that phrase is an easy one to roll your eyes at as just another selling point. But as I enter my senior year, I can attest that the Missouri Method is very real and that the Missouri Method really works,” Lederman said. “There’s no other place in the country that I know of where a student can get the same experiences I have had at Mizzou, and I can say today that the teaching and opportunities I’ve received in my three-plus years in the School of Journalism have molded me into the reporter and writer I am today.”
After graduation, Lederman plans to follow in the footsteps of the recently-graduated sports journalism students he’s been “fortunate to call friends and mentors” by entering the world of sports journalism and “grinding” to work his way up from there.
Updated: November 10, 2020